Want to get in touch with the source of your food without all the work of actually growing and caring for plants? It's your time of year, slacker!
We're smack dab in the middle of central Florida's strawberry season, when some farms begin to open their doors to the amateurs. Prices vary, but you can usually get a pound of strawberries for just over a buck (and a little sweat equity). Strawberries lend themselves to amateur picking because it's fairly easy to tell by color whether the berries are ripe. It will also give you a tiny taste of what it's like to pick fruit and vegetables for a living. Hint: It's tough.
You can check out pickyourown.org to find farms that allow the hoi polloi to trample over their fields, or wait until the end of the season and just ask at any local farm. Most places will open up after the regular harvest for a little extra cash. That's when the berries are extremely ripe and ready to be packed into freezer bags for year-round use.
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2008.